Divine Evil

enough. Anybody got a candy bar?”
    The boy popped up. “I could go get some. If you got some money.”
    “We'll settle for Twinkles. There's a box in the kitchen, on the table. Go on through the garage.”
    “Yes, ma'am.” He was off like a shot.
    “What in the wide world is that, Clare?”
    Clare glanced down and waved at Doc Crampton. He was carrying his black bag, obviously going to or coming from a house call in the neighborhood.
    “We can call it a skeleton.” Chuckling, she got down from the ladder and walked over to kiss his cheek. “Who's sick?”
    “The little Waverly girl has the chicken pox.” Still baffled, he studied the maze of metal. “I guess I pictured you whittling wood or patting clay.”
    “That, too, sometimes.”
    He turned to her, put on his doctor's face. “You didn't make that appointment.”
    “I'm fine. Really fine. I just wasn't at my best that night.”
    “It was a shock for you. Lisa tells me you visit her often.”
    “I can say the same about you. You don't change, Doc.”
    “Too old to change.” He sighed a little, hating to admit that age was slowing him some. “You're doing proud with Jack's flowers.”
    “It makes me feel closer to him when I garden.” She followed his gaze back to the lawn, where the annuals and perennials flashed out of green grass. “You were right before, about my having to forgive him. I'm coming closer to it, being here.” She worried her lip for a moment.
    “What is it, Clare?”
    She checked her audience and noted the boys were involved in wrestling and devouring Twinkles. “I'd really like to talk with you about it, about some things I found out. Not here,” she said. Not here with her father's delphiniums waving behind her. “Once I think it through a little more, can I come see you?”
    “You can always come to me.”
    “Thanks.” Just knowing it relieved her. “Listen, I know you've probably got to go stick a hypodermic in somebody. I'll call you.”
    “See that you do.” He shifted his bag. “Jack would have been proud of you.”
    “I hope so.” She started back to her ladder. “Hey. Tell Alice I'm up for another pizza bash.” With a last wave, she started back to work.
    Clare was just lighting a cigarette when the boy on the bike—Tim, Tom, no, Todd, she remembered—came racing down the street, a carton of soft drinks strapped to the back of the seat.
    “You made good time,” she commented, climbing down.
    “I heard about it at the market.” Todd's voice was breathless with excitement and exercise. “July Crampton came in. He came right in and told us.”
    “Told you what?”
    “About the body. Him and Chip Dopper found a dead body over in the Stokeys′ hay field. They was baling hay, you see? Baling it for Mrs. Stokey ′cause she's widowed and all. July Crampton said they nearly ran right over it.”
    The rest of the kids gathered around him, shouting out questions and adding to his sense of importance. Clare sat on the grass.
    She was still there thirty minutes later when Blair drove up. He got out of the car and walked over to sit beside her.
    “I guess you've heard.”
    “The afternoon bulletin.” She plucked a blade of grass. “Have they identified the body?”
    “No. Apparently whoever— Well, she'd been dead awhile.”
    The tender blade bent in her fist. “She?”
    “Yeah. Cam seems to think it might be the body of a young runaway who passed through here back in April.”
    Clare closed her eyes. “Carly Jamison.”
    “He didn't mention a name. The coroner's doing an autopsyCam's already sent Mick Morgan up to Harrisburg for dental records.”
    Clare watched the shadow of a bird circling overhead. “It just won't stop, will it? A little while ago, I was working out here, and there were a bunch of kids around. The boy down the street was out washing his car and playing the radio. I give a kid a few bucks to go get sodas, and he comes back and tells me there's a dead body in the Stokeys′ hay field.” She watched as a bee hovered over her impatiens. “It's like looking at two pictures, and one got imposed over the other. A darkroom mistake.”
    “I know it's bad, Clare. The way it looks, Biff picked the girl up, killed her, and dumped her body in the field. Maybe he meant to take care of it later, maybe he was just plain crazy.”
    “Either way, he's dead, too.”
    “Yeah, he's dead, too. But it looks as if this murder is going to be laid right at his door. In a way, that might be